Los Angeles’ shutdown could land the Dallas Cowboys an extra home game

Don’t be surprised if NBC’s cameras are at AT&T Stadium on Sept. 13 to kick off the season.

FILE - The sunset is seen through the open end-zone doors at AT&T Stadium as the Cowboys run a play during a game against the L.A. Rams in Arlington on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2019.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

You can call it “The California Problem” and it exists in just about every major sport right now. It’s also one that the Cowboys could benefit from in their season opener if the NFL is able to start the 2020 season as scheduled.

In 2005, the New Orleans Saints played their first scheduled home game at the Meadowlands in New York. Hurricane Katrina had forced the Saints out of the Superdome, and while they would play the rest of their home schedule at San Antonio’s Alamodome or LSU’s Tiger Stadium, the Saints caught a bad break early while the Giants picked up a ninth home game.

No one complained with any authority because a city digging out from the ravages of a hurricane was slightly more significant than arguing sites for football games.

My guess is the NFL will reach a similar conclusion about moving games because of stay-at-home orders. It will only make sense if a team can’t host a scheduled home game that the event be moved to the road team’s stadium (first choice) or a neutral site (second choice).

Dallas is scheduled to open LA’s new SoFi Stadium against the Chargers in a preseason game the weekend of Aug. 15. The Cowboys are set to start the regular season there Sept. 13 in a Sunday night game with the Rams.

This week, Los Angeles County’s stay-at-home order was extended into August. The county has been particularly hard hit by the virus, despite being one of the quickest to shut down, with a high percentage of positive tests and more than 1,700 deaths.

So no one here is trying to be giddy over the fact that the Rams and Chargers and perhaps even the 49ers could play more than half their games on the road if California is one of the last states to reopen. It’s too soon to know, but it’s not too soon to plan, and alternatives presumably will be discussed at the scheduled (virtual) owners meetings Tuesday.

Before anyone gets overly excited about a potential extra home game for Dallas, keep two things in mind. One is that “home-field advantage’’ in the NFL falls just a bit on the overrated side. Home teams last season were 132-123-1 for a whopping winning percentage of .517. Among other things this should tell bettors that adding three points to the home team’s line might be extreme.

The Cowboys were 5-3 at home and 3-5 on the road, but even that difference represented an anomaly in 2019. In fact, NFC teams had a losing record at home — 62-65-1. We think of Seattle as possessing a significant edge from its crowd when it plays at home. Last season the Seahawks were 4-4 in Seattle and 7-1 on the road.

On top of that, we have all the unknowns that come with the 2020 season. With no fans in the stands — possibly small crowds permitted in some cities later in the year, but who knows — what does that do to the already limited advantage home teams possess? If your thinking is that in tight games, officials sometimes get caught up in the crowd and throw a flag that favors the home team (this seems much more probable in the NBA than the NFL), there just may not be much to get swept up in this year, other than the fake crowd noise that Fox broadcaster Joe Buck said he expects the league to provide. And that could be simply for the fans watching on TV, anyway, because really what’s the point or the fairness of fake noise in an empty stadium?

Now if stay-at-home orders get extended into the fall and continue to preclude the kind of gathering that 150 players, coaches and officials create on a football field, the California teams and possibly both New York teams (based in New Jersey) could be handicapped if they had to go on the road for 16 weeks. Records aside, flying every week would present a challenge. My guess is the Cardinals’ Glendale stadium will be among those getting some extra games. That sort of neutral site consideration surely will need to be discussed by owners as well.

For right now, the NBA’s decision to quarantine or create a “bubble” for players in Orlando or Las Vegas or both removes the California problem from the mix. Major League Baseball is attempting to get its season underway in early summer in its customary home stadiums, but the MLB proposal already contains language that tells us the California teams could be playing games in their Arizona spring training sites.

While there is plenty of time to resolve these issues, the planning continues. The NFL’s going to be different in 2020. You and I might not find ourselves in AT&T Stadium on Sept. 13, but don’t be surprised if NBC’s cameras are there to kick off the season.